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Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones: Authentic Leadership

Why should anyone be led by you?

It’s a fair question. And here’s another:

Why should anyone work here?

These two strikingly simple and obvious questions have been answered rather well, by two British management thinkers, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones.

Rob Goffee & Gareth Jones - Authentic Leadership
Rob Goffee & Gareth Jones – Authentic Leadership

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

Rob Goffee is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the London Business School and is a long term academic. Gareth Jones, on the other hand, has alternated between academic and corporate roles, teaching at LBS too, and also the University of East Anglia, Henley, INSEAD, and currently, IE Business School, in Madrid. But he has also held senior HR roles at Polygram and the BBC.

Authentic Leadership

Their first collaboration was a relatively unremarked book, called The Character of a Corporation. But it introduced ideas that they were to return to in their second, breakthrough book, and then again in their recent fourth book.

Their second book was called Why Should Anyone be Led by You? It introduced a mass business audience to the concept of Authentic Leadership. This was emphatically not their creation, tracking back to classical Greek thinking, and the Delphic injunction to first know yourself.

But their articulation struck a chord. It came at the right time and was delivered compellingly. Goffee and Jones argued that companies are led in far too much of a technocratic way, by people acting as managers and bureaucrats. They lack sufficient human connection with their people, and self awareness about their shortcomings.

Real leaders, they argued, are confident in who they are and what they stand for. They are not afraid to put that on show and constantly act with integrity in the way that they live the values they espouse. They are able to communicate well, and remain true to themselves, whilst still coping with and adapting to rapidly changing events. Consequently, they can inspire people to extraordinary levels of commitment.

Leading Clever People

The next book Goffee and Jones wrote addressed the challenges of leading an organisation or team made of smart, creative people. This is a typical challenge for many of today’s start-up businesses. It is also important for established businesses that want to bring together innovation teams, and for professional service businesses that want to create a great culture. The book is called Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People.

A summary of the do’s and don’ts might look like this:

Do

  • Explain and persuade
  • Use expertise
  • Give people space and resources
  • Tell them what
  • Give people time
  • Provide boundaries (simple rules)
  • Give recognition
  • Protect them from the rain
  • Talk straight
  • Give real world challenges with constraints
  • Create a galaxy
  • Conduct and connect
Don’t

  • Tell people what to do
  • Use hierarchy
  • Allow them to burn out
  • Tell them how
  • Interfere
  • Create bureaucracy
  • Give frequent feedback
  • Expose them to politics
  • Use bullsh*t or deceive
  • Build an ivory tower
  • Recruit a star
  • Take the credit as a leader

Creating an Authentic Organisation

Goffee and Jones’ latest book is Why Should Anyone Work Here? It applies many of their earlier ideas to making a great organisation. At its heart is a simple mnemonic that spells out the six ingredients they argue are needed for a ‘dynamic and future-fit’ workplace: DREAMS.

Difference

Diversity increases creativity, which decreases with uniformity. Don’t do diversity because legislation compels you to. Do it because it has a positive impact on the bottom line: more creativity, better decisions, happier workforce.

Radical honesty

(I know – a bit of a fix)

The more open and transparent you are, the happier people will feel. And if being open is likely to expose unfairness that will anger people, radical honesty will compel you to fix the problem, rather than hide it beneath dissembling..

“You need to tell someone the truth before someone else does,” said Jones. “Think of BP’s failure to control information after the [Deepwater Horizon] oil spill. Reputational capital is much more important and much more fragile than we ever thought.”

Extra value

(This acronym-building is tough!)

This is not just about improving the business; it’s about adding value to the people within your business… as a means of improving your business.

Authenticity

There it is… Their earlier work popularised the concept, so its front and centre here too.

But, reflecting on how the ideas have settled in over the years, Goffee and Jones note that in the US, authenticity is too often read as ‘be yourself… find your true north.’ But their view is that an effective leader needs to be ‘yourself more skilfully.’

Meaning

This is about ensuring everyone in the business understands the real purpose behind the tasks they do.

Simple rules

(one last shoe-horn!)

Businesses need systems. But this too easily leads to over-bureaucratisation. Rules need to work for the business and enable staff to do what’s right, not just prevent every single possibility of doing wrong.

 

 

 

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